I really wasn’t expecting the positive reviews for Mortal Kombat II, due in theaters May 8. Its most recent “Let’s Fuckin’ Go” trailer suggested something that looked so far beyond campy schlock that it would surely be the sort of colossal flop that develops into a cult favorite. But instead, with reviews now out, it’s sitting at a very respectable 73 percent on Rotten Tomatoes! But this hasn’t stopped producer Todd Garner from launching into a disgusted rant on X over how clueless all the critics must be.
“Some of these reviews are cracking me up,” begins the producer behind movies like Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 (Tomatometer: 6 percent) and The Master of Disguise (Tomatometer: 1 percent). “It’s clear they have never played the game and have no idea what the fans want or ANY of the rules/ canon of Mortal Kombat,” he rages, of a movie about which Rotten Tomatoes reports “critics say the sequel lands a solid hit.”
Some of these reviews are cracking me up. It’s clear they have never played the game and have no idea what the fans want or ANY of the rules/ canon of Mortal Kombat. One reviewer was mad that a guy “had a laser eye!” Why the fuck do we still allow people that don’t have any love…
— Todd Garner (@Todd_Garner) May 6, 2026
“One reviewer was mad that a guy ‘had a laser eye!’” Garner’s outburst continues. “Why the fuck do we still allow people that don’t have any love for the genre review these movies! Baffling.”
This was spotted by Discussing Film co-owner Andrew J. Salazar, who also claimed Garner was “blocking critics on Twitter.”
The reaction is certainly peculiar given just how well a clearly extremely silly movie is being received by critics, albeit one that Metacritic gives a weighted average of 49. It seems, from a cursory scan of the couple of dozen reviews, to have been mostly received in the manner intended. There’s a celebratory 8/10 from IGN, and even a 75 from the far harsher San Francisco Chronicle. Total Film came in with 3/5 stars, calling it a “bloody fun second round,” and RogerEbert.com offers a very laudable 2.5/4 on a site that takes its movies very seriously.
The aforementioned RogerEbert review by Simon Abrams, in fact, opens up with a discussion of how this is a film that very much seems to have been deliberately made for “the fans” with little interest in appealing to a more general audience, and then still offers a pretty generous score despite a laundry list of well-evidenced complaints.
But given the nature of a movie this ostentatious and outlandish, made with a cheesy air and packed with fan-service catchphrases and outrageous gore, of course it would also attract sneering reactions from the usual sorts. I would assume at this stage that no one in the industry even bothers reading New York Post movie reviews given how functionally pointless they are, so of course the paper’s Johnny Oleksinski writes the revoltingly unpleasant line, “an onscreen bucket of slop that people will give a pass to because losers cheer whenever a character, such as they are, is impaled or sliced in half.” Wanker.
As for this angry review mentioning a “laser eye,” I’ve yet to find it. A few mention the character of Kano but mostly in the most positive light, calling him one of the film’s highlights! In a very negative review, Vulture says “…the movie only really sparks to life when laser-eyed Australian mercenary Kano (Josh Lawson) is brought back for reasons even the other characters in the movie acknowledge are unwarranted.”
So why is the producer of 2011’s Jack and Jill (3 percent) and 2006’s Zoom (5 percent) so particularly horrified by this 73-percent-scoring release? You’d think the person who produced 2016’s The True Memoirs of an International Assassin (a very enviable 0 percent) would have slightly thicker skin. You know, after producing 2017’s 0-percent-scoring Naked.
Oh, but I should be polite. Garner asked a question. “Why the fuck do we still allow people that don’t have any love for the genre review these movies?” That’s because it would require taking over the world and controlling all of the media in order to decide who is allowed to write movie reviews, which is quite a lot of work. Also, because a serious film critic can write insightful criticism of a work from which movie creators can learn. You know, so someone would know how to help improve a film like 2005’s The Fog (4 percent).
